Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper at WAMU

When we last saw Mike Cleveland and Flamekeeper at Jenny Brook in June, we both thought that with Darrell Webb singing lead, picking guitar, and serving as emcee the band was the best we had ever seen it. Darrell asserted being the happiest he'd ever been and said he felt he belonged where he was. Within a very few weeks he had left Mike's band and formed one of his own. At MACC in Columbus, OH in July Jeff White filled in very capably, but it was clear he was a fill-in who would not be taking a permanent gig with Flamekeeper. Mike told us they had auditioned Tom Adams and he would be joining the band soon. We were, of course, aware that Tom's storied career as a banjo player, including two IBMA banjo player of the year awards, had been cut short by dystonia, a crippling neurological syndrome that effects many musicians. I had seen Tom perform with Seneca rocks, but really didn't remember his singing. At that time he was having a difficult time trying to cope with his diminished ability on the banjo, but still trying.

Reports have been coming in on the forums saying that Tom's performances with Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper are first rate, but I wanted to see for myself. The other day Katy Daly at WAMU in Washington, D.C. recorded an interview with the band and has posted this video:



It is clear for all to see that Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper have lost nothing in adding Tom Adams to the mix. His presence brings a mature and solid lead voice and broad experience which will serve him well as emcee. Junior Sisk recently said to us that perhaps even more important than instrumental and vocal versatility in a band is that a member "ride good." I'm certain that not only will Tom Adams ride good, but that he will wear well with this superior band of first rate musicians and people. Congratulations to Tom and to Mike Cleveland for seeing the possibilities presented by Tom's availability as a guitarist. Both Irene and I are eager to see this reorganized group in performance.

IBMA Awards Peview - Part I

After I collected photographs of nominees from my archives I found that there were only two nominees in major categories I couldn't find.  My apologies to Stuart Duncan and Bryan Sutton.  Otherwise, I think they're all pretty much here.  Because there are a good deal of overlaps from category to category and not enough space to cover each and every person in every band, I've had to be selective.  I've divided the list into two parts.  Today I'll post the bands and some of the individuals in the three band categories: Instrumental Group of the Year, Vocal Group of the Year, and Entertainer of the Year.  Next week I'll post pictures from the individual performance categories as well as a few outliers.  A comprehensive photo record of every nominee in every category wouldn't be feasible within the confines of this blog. Nevertheless, I hope what follows will prove useful and entertaining.  No preference or rooting is implied by the order of presentation.

Band Awards

 Blue Highway (Vocal and Instrumental Group)

 

Tim Stafford (Blue Highway)

 Wayne Taylor (Blue Highway)

Russell Moore & IIIrd Tyme Out
(Entertainer & Vocal Group of the Year)

Steve Dilling (IIIrd Tyme Out)

Wayne Benson (IIIrd Tyme Out)

The Grascals (Entertainer of the Year)

Jamie Johnson, Terry Smith, Terry Eldredge (Grascals)

Dailey & Vincent 

(Entertainer & Vocal Group of the Year) 

 Jamie Dailey, Jeff Parker, Darin Vincent

Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver 

(Entertainer & Vocal Group)

 

Doyle Lawson, Carl White & Darren McGuire

 

The Isaacs (Vocal Group of the Year)

The Del McCoury Band (Entertainer of the Year)

Del McCoury

  

Dan Tyminski Band 

(Entertainer &Vocal Group of the Year)

 Justin Moses (Dan Tyminski Band)

 

Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper (Instrumental Group of the Year)

 

Jesse Baker, Marhall Wilborn, Michael Cleveland

 

 Infamous Stringdusters (Instrumental Group of the Year)

\

Chris Pandolfi 

Jeremy Garrett

 

Rickey Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder

(Instrumental Group of the Year)

Ricky Skaggs

Bluegrass and the Preservation of the American Myth

The following essay is a slight revision of an piece posted on the Welcome Page of the Californian Bluegrass Association last week.

I’ve been pondering the strength of “traditional” bluegrass music to hold its devoted audience, and this search has been abetted by my current reading of Daniel Levitin’s book, The World in Six Songs. In a section about what he calls “Comfort” songs, Levitin writes about the ability of song to provide comfort to its listeners. Each person finds comfort in different songs or kinds of songs, identifying with both the music itself and the lyrics in ways that make them feel better. One particular example he uses is the power of songs about feeling left out and excluded to help assuage the anxiety and disaffection of young people who feel they don’t fit in. Since, especially during adolescence, each of us feels misunderstood; such songs have had tremendous power to provide youth with rallying points.

As I read and thought about this phenomenon, I tried to understand why people love the form of bluegrass music they do. I was struck by the power of myth to structure our preferences in life. Even for people my age (I must admit to 68) life in America, for most, no longer contains direct experience in rural living or having grown up on the farm. Because my ancestors came from Europe in the period between about 1865 and 1890 and settled in and around New York City, there isn’t much of a rural tradition in our family memory, except for a great grandfather who peddled notions from his backpack in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania after the Civil War before involving himself in other pursuits. While born in New York, I grew up in various suburbs in Connecticut and Pennsylvania. I think that’s not an unusual background for the majority of Americans my age, although a different kind of immigration moved people from rural farm settings to urban and suburban life during the depression and then after WW II. It’s from this second migration that bluegrass music as well as rock and roll have emerged.

The songs written and performed by Bill Monroe and his musical descendents celebrated the world of simple mountain life, the hardships of scratching a living from the land, the joys of farming and close family relations, fundamental religious belief, and distress at the loss of these life styles forced by poverty and the subsequent move to the industrial centers of the Midwest and the northeast. Along the way, the difficult life of grinding poverty those early immigrants to Detroit, Gary, Cleveland, and other cities began to take on a nostalgic glow, even though the deaths of coal miners were never completely forgotten. David Peterson’s song “1946” provides a good case study of the mythology we like to remember of an America that may never have existed:

Oh the baby boomers were boomin’
And the buck stopped with Old Harry Truman
The best years of our lives was more than Hollywood’s big fix,
Funny thing, it really was back in 1946.

Sometimes I think I would go back,
If I could find a way – when hard work and sacrifice,
Were virtues of the day – when anyone could get ahead –
No gimmicks, gags, or tricks,
And neighbors never locked their doors,
Back in 1946.
Lyric by David Peterson

Conditions in the United States were hardly at their best in 1946. While we were heaving a huge sigh of relief at the end of the “Good” war, millions of women were being laid off from jobs that had provided them with freedom they had never known before to make room to have work for the returning G.I.’s. Major league baseball was still one year away from having its first black player. There was violent labor unrest in the coal, electric, and steel industries, the worst since 1919. The Nuremburg war trials were drawing to a close. The film, The Best Years of Our Lives, depicted the difficulties facing returning veterans, the title being quite ironic. The world was beginning to descend into a twenty year cold war that would cost the opponents hundreds of billions of dollars and perhaps set the stage for our current difficulties. On July 25, 1946 two black couples were lynched from a bridge in Georgia. At least one of the men was a recently returned veteran. Yet David Peterson paints a musical picture of a benign and carefree world he wishes he could return to. To be fair, he does give a brief nod to the specter of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder among returning veterans. Nevertheless, the song papers over the quite problematic situation facing Americans in 1946.

By placing even traumatic events within a lively musical context, bluegrass offers a picture of a comforting and hopeful world that makes people who listen to it feel good. Even sad and pitiful songs, as James King puts it, serve up a nostalgic view. Even in songs depicting horrible events like “The Awful, Dreadful Snake,” “Driving Mary Home,” “The Long Black Veil,” “The Banks of the Ohio,” and hundreds of others, the music often paints an optimistic and hopeful vision at least in the melody if not the lyric, a vision people would prefer to maintain in contrast to the risk and uncertainty often facing us in our daily lives. Levitin points out that tragic content is comforting for many as they look at their own reality. The lilting musicality of the sound of a bluegrass band offers hope and encouragement. The world of the bluegrass festival isolates us from the misery of the world. Hearing, and better still, making this music, helps to perpetuate the myth of an America that either never existed, or occurred only briefly in isolated corners of our country. For many bluegrass fans this world maintains traditions we all wish really existed as a general component of American life and we could keep alive.
 
We would all prefer to see our world as looking more like Disney’s Main Street or the life of River City, Iowa the day Professor Harold Hill arrived there to sell band instruments and uniforms in The Music Man. We enjoy imagining the world of the western hero who’s more like Shane or Hondo than like Al Swearengen depicted in the recent HBO series Deadwood. We allow ourselves to become a part of Fred Astaire and Judy Garland’s stroll down fifth avenue in Easter Parade. Partly because the traditional songs of bluegrass music help us retain our illusions about the world and recall to us a long lost vision of a world that may never have been, fans, particulalarly those of a certain age, cling to it.

Jesse Brock: A Profile

This profile of Jesse Brock was originally published in 2009 edition "The Bluegrass Guide" published by Candi Sawyer, who is also the promoter of the Jenny Brook Family festival, to be held again next year at the Tunbridge Worlds Fair Grounds in Tunbridge, VT from June 17 - 20, 2010.

When Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper take the stage, a fan’s eyes first focus on the famous blind fiddler who’s now been named IBMA fiddler of the year six times. Mike Cleveland’s story is well known and he’s been well recognized for his achievement. After a while, however, as the quality of the entire band becomes more and more evident, the eyes inevitably move to a wraithlike figure of a man moving with lithe grace around the stage, a mandolin in his hands. Jesse Brock, on stage, is a force to be reckoned with. He moves quickly behind Mike Cleveland, his strong chop catching the up beat in perfect timing with Marshall Wilborn’s strong bass down beat. Together they give Mike Cleveland exactly the sort of strong support a musician needs when his only cues are auditory. Jesse then moves quickly, but without hurrying to his right for a mandolin solo, just on time. Jesse Brock’s mobility gives a Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper set a life of its own. His energy and presence suffuse the group with enthusiasm and a love for the traditional music they play that matches Mike’s power and tunefulness. Jesse has been nominated for 2009 Mandolin Player of the Year by the membership of the International Bluegrass Music Association.

Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper

At the age of 37, Jesse Brock is reaching toward the top of his profession. Born in Illinois, Brock attended public school through eighth grade and then was home-schooled through high school. He says his early musical education grew from the school of hard knocks, having hit the road at an early age with his family’s band, The C.W. Brock Family, where he began on fiddle, but also played some guitar and bass. Six years on the road in a family band provides a rich environment to become a virtuoso musician. Jesse says playing in his family band “helped mold me into the core of what you hear today.” He says that family bands taught him how to be more attuned to public relations on the road, to become well-rounded, and to develop as a musician in ways different from more typical musicians. “…just being able to connect to the audience and [working] at the record table present situations that contest players…” never encounter.

Jesse described how he fell into playing the mandolin. His father, C.W., had toured with several bands during the late 70’s. As his children began playing instruments, the idea of a family band was born. When mandolinist Steve Abbey found that touring was interfering with his day job as a college teacher, Jesse stepped up to learning the mandolin and serving as band emcee. He says he wasn’t yet ready, but had to learn because the “void had to be filled.” Like many bluegrass pickers, he listened to the greats on records – Bobby Osborne, Jesse McReynolds, and Doyle Lawson as well as the Dillards. During this period, the band played the SPBGMA circuit in the mid-west and traveled to perhaps 30 states. Jesse was home-schooled and says his parents set high standards of performance for the correspondence course he and his sisters were enrolled in and they took responsibility for filling holes in the curriculum.

Jesse’s first band away from home was called Stonewall Bluegrass where he began picking Monroe style mandolin as soon as he began playing with them in Jaffrey, NH back in 1989. He found himself free to try new things he couldn’t do in his family’s band, mostly because of the new band’s different groove. He next joined the Lynn Morris Band, which he played with off and on for about ten years. Working with top players like Chris Jones on guitar, Marshall Wilborn on bass, Lynn Morris on both Scruggs style and Clawhammer banjo, and, later, Ron Stewart when he joined the band on banjo (and sometimes fiddle) the band jelled into the best Jesse had played with up to that time. He says, “These folks taught me taste, timing, and recording techniques that I carry with me to today.” Marshall Wilborn, still playing with Jesse in Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper says, “I think that with any band Jesse works with, he'll be taking the stage with an uncommon energy and enthusiasm. He loves the music, loves to play, and it's obvious.” He goes on to say, “I think it matters to him how he treats people. He worked with Lynn and me for a year in the early 90s, and then again for several years, from the late 90s through 2003, and there's never been a time when he was anything less than wonderful with the public, and that, in itself, is quite an asset to any band.” That’s high praise from one of the top bass players and warm human beings in the business.

Jesse & Marshall Wilborn

Jesse then joined Chris Jones & the Nightdrivers for a two year stint. Jones, still touring with his own band as well as hosting a regular show dedicated to traditional bluegrass on XM/Sirius Radio has this to say about Jesse’s development, “I’ve known Jesse since he was in his early teens. Even before his lead playing had developed to what it is today, he was a stellar rhythm mandolin player right from the start. Later Jesse and I would end up playing together in the Lynn Morris Band. When I formed my own band, I asked Jesse to join, and he made an important contribution to the sound of the band. Jesse played on the first album I did for Rebel ("No One But You"). Jesse's style continued to evolve during that time, and I watched him just get better and better. I've always allowed a lot of freedom of expression in my band, allowing musicians to let their own personalities shine through in the overall sound of the band, and Jesse did that, and the results were really good. Jesse stands out among mandolin players today for his drive and the excitement in his playing. In an era where many mandolin players sound similar, Jesse is distinctive. To my ear, he combines the sound of one of his mandolin heroes, the late Dempsey Young, with his own unique and powerful approach to the instrument, and the result is pure Jesse. Not to mention that he has one of the best chops in the business! He fits like a glove in Flamekeeper. He's now a very important part of their sound.” Jesse remarks that Jones’ material sparked an interest in him, and Jones also widened his experience by taking him on a European tour. Jesse says that Jones kept him on his toes by not providing a set list, and goes on to say, “Chris was always fair to me….I strive to be level-headed like (he is) and a gentleman as well. I still consider Chris the brother I never had.”

Jesse then played with a variety of bands of increasing national prominence. He completed two stints with the Lynn Morris Band. According to him, “The Lynn Morris Band honed all that into a polished piece.” He says that now takes what he learned earlier and applies it in new situations while continuing to develop with each band he’s in. “It really helps to play with stellar musicians.” Marshall Wilborn, the great bass player and Lynn Morris’s devoted husband has this to say about Jesse, “I think it matters to him how he treats people. He worked with Lynn and me for a year in the early 90s, and then again for several years, from the late 90s through 2003, and there's never been a time when he was anything less than wonderful with the public, and that, in itself, is quite an asset to any band.”

Everyone who plays with Dale Ann Bradley talks about the experience of playing next to someone who has perfect pitch and the opportunity and challenge that represents. Jesse says, “Singing with Dale Ann really opened my voice up, and playing mandolin (for her) was a dream. My notes seemed to flow so easily, and it was the first time the music (seemed to come more easily.)” He says the Bradley experience opened his mind to try more challenging licks and melodies. Bradley reciprocates the admiration, saying, “Jesse is one of the absolute best to ever hold a mandolin! His energy on stage is contagious! He can lift the quality of bands music 100%”

An interesting interlude in Jesse’s career came when, in 2006, he moved to Bulgaria to play with a band called “Lily of the West,” organized by singer/guitarist/songwriter Lilly Drumeva. Archie Warnock, who is the American contact for this band and who also reviewed one of her CD’s for Bluegrass Unlimited magazine, commented, “It's a long way from Bowling Green, KY to Sofia, Bulgaria, and I'm not just talking about miles. Lilly's music is a much wider range of styles than the straight bluegrass that Jesse normally plays, so I think playing in the band with her made him think about how to fit the mandolin into other types of music. Much of what she does - other than bluegrass, of course, of which she does a lot - is Irish-flavored, with some country and folk. She has a small number of traditional Bulgarian folk songs she does, too. These come off surprisingly well in the acoustic band environment and are always a sure-fire crowd pleaser when she does them here. The time signatures are quite different from bluegrass (things like 7/8 time), so Jesse had to adapt to both hearing and playing differently. He did it masterfully, of course.” Archie commented that, because there are so few bluegrass pickers in Bulgaria, Drumeva “often recruits local musicians and teaches them to play bluegrass. They tend to be quite talented but just unfamiliar with the bluegrass traditions. Jesse really helped make her band better bluegrass players by bringing in his familiarity with the music and contributing his good "bluegrass ears."” Warnock suggests that the opportunity to play for Mike Cleveland drew Jesse back to the U.S., along with the difficulty of making a full-time living as a sideman for an American mandolin player in Bulgaria. Jesse says that one of the important lessons he learned from Drumeva was to focus on the business side of music as well as the musical side. “Whether you are running your own band, helping run a band, or just being a sideman, you should take care of it as if it were your own.

Jesse Brock returned to the U.S. to join Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper. Cleveland released his first album with Flamekeeper in 2004, and they have been building a reputation as a hard charging traditional touring band ever since. Cleveland is the six time IBMA fiddle player of the year, and his band has established a notable reputation. With its recent changes, many people believe it is its strongest version yet. Jesse Brock has been with the band since 2007. He has added his unique level of energy and enthusiasm to this fine band. Michael Cleveland says, “Jesse Brock is one of the most incredible mandolin players I've ever heard. His chop is right in the pocket where it needs to be at all times, and he comes up with solo's that blow my mind. I like to call him the human metronome. It is a privilege to play with him every day.“ Jesse declares that all members of Flamekeeper “put forth the effort the band needs to succeed….We all want to be the best in the business.” Jesse sees himself as a supporter both on and off stage. On stage, he moves behind Mike Cleveland to use his great mandolin chop to under lay Cleveland’s powerful fiddle voice. Since Mike is blind, he needs the additional auditory cues. Jesse’s mobility, possible because his mandolin is miced, also adds animation to an otherwise rather stationary line of musicians at microphone stands. He asserts that the addition of Darrell Webb to the band’s lineup has “brought the band to a new level that we have been trying to achieve from day one.” He views the current makeup of Michael Cleveland and Flamekeeper to be the combination every band leader looks for.

Jesse has recently relocated his base from Kentucky to a home he has bought near Portland, ME where he is engaged to be married to Hilary Spring Kang. His success with Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper, together with the new center in his life, suggest he’s reaching toward a new maturity as a person and as a performer. For a man coming into his professional and personal prime, this must be an exciting and fulfilling time.

Cabela's and Dietrich's

Cabela's is the largest and most comprehensive sporting goods store anywhere. That sounds like a pretty hyperbolic statement, but it's only true. Founded in 1961 in Chapell, Nebraska as a tiny mail order outlet of fishing flies, the company has grown into a behemoth. It's mail order catalogs are eagerly awaited by hunters, fisherman, campers, and other outdoor enthusiasts; reading through it is a feast for the eyes and the imagination. The company produces over 100 mail order catalogs a year. But it's as retail store and outdoor museum that Cabela's really produces for many. There are currently 30 Cabela's stores in the United States and Canada with two new ones announced. We stopped for re-visit at the store located near Hamburg, PA on the northern edge of Pennsylvania's Amish country.


It was a hot, mid-August morning, and the acres of parking lot had not yet begun to fill. Plenty of space is provided for even the largest RV rigs, and Cabela's provides a dump station for convenience. As its web site advertises, Cabela's seeks to serve as a museum for outdoorsman as well as a retail store.


In addition to the mammoth bronze sculpture of Indians in a birch bark canoe tackling rough lake waves, much of the floor space at Cabela's is taken up with game mounts from around the world. Many of these are meticulous reproductions of world record animals. Others are realistic portrayals of animals in their natural habitats. Cabela's is no place for people who reject killing game animals as sport. With that warning, the store provides an interesting balance between selling merchandise and offering well mounted displays of game animals as well as a few live displays of fish. It also has acres of gear, clothing, camping equipment, furniture, weapons, field living necessities, furniture, and more. Cabela's is not a discount store, although the Bargain Cave at the back of the store has much to offer the discriminating bargain hunter. The store itself, comprising about 250,000 square feet, is just too large to describe adequately, so I'll let pictures do most of the talking. One of the enjoyable elements of a visit to Cabela's is just plain people watching. We chatted briefly with a young family from Charlotte, NC on our way into the store. As we wandered around, we encountered a number of Mennonite people in their typical plain dress. Out of respect for their religious convictions, there are no pictures of plain folk in my blog.

View on Entering Store

Oceans of Fishing Gear

Forests of Camo

African Veldt Display

Watering Hole

American Game Mountain

Sometimes you can almost forget that this is all an indoors effort to sell the merchandise associated with hunting and camping. When I was a kid in New York City, one of my favorite places was the Museum of Natural History where, in addition to the dinosaur bones and the gigantic sperm whale hanging from the ceiling, the dioramas of game from around the world, especially the Akeley African Hall depicted the wild world better than anything else available at the time. The mounts and settings at Cabela's approach the wonder of those days.

A Stuffed Moose Watches it All

Deer Country is perhaps the signature display at Cabela's. Isolated from the retail sales area, it comprises dozens of mounts and heads as a fine museum display. Perhaps characteristic of Deer Country's visitors is this truck driver from Arkansas studying a wall of huge heads, each with a newpaper page telling its story. For this man, a visit to Cabela's is like a pilgrimage.




When I visit Cabela's, I like to stop into the Gun Library, where collectors' guns are desplayed behind lock and key. The most expensive rifle I saw on this visit cost just short of $15,000 but you never know what might be in stock. After a couple of hours wandering around, we left with six pieces of fresh fudge clutched in our hands. First time visitors should allow at least half a day for a visit to Cabela's. The cafeteria inside obviates the necessity of leaving the store to eat, but an entire industry of outlieing stores has been spawned by this institution. The once dieing town of Hamburg has been resuscitated.

Dietrich's Meats & Country Store

Located in eastern Berks County along I-78 and only a few miles east of Cabela's is Dietrich's Meats & Country Store. When our son was a student playing soccer at Lafayette College, we discovered Dietrich's as a place to stop for great home smoked hot dogs to take to the tail gates which the parents provided to feed their starving kids after games. Later, when we lived in Berks County for a few years, we came to treasure Dietrich's as a source of hams, sausages, liverwurst, and endless varieties of smoked and fresh meat as well as Amish baked goods and wonderful local ice cream. And of course - scrapple. If you're not familiar with scrapple, don't ask what's in it. Just buy some, slice it thin, and fry it for breakfast along with your eggs and biscuits. Again, out of respect for the religious traditions of plain folk, I have not included any pictures, but check out their web site and stop there if you happen to be crossing Pennsylvania on I-78.

Where Might Bluegrass Be Heading?

Let’s take a look at the current state of bluegrass music and try to point to some possible futures.. Last week I reviewed a book called “Appetite for Self-Destruction” by Steve Knopper, which describes, in sometimes excruciating detail, the propensities of the recording industry to resist innovation until forced to embrace the newest technology. While I may be missing a few links, this means that, beginning with the wax cylinder, the progression of recording media looks something like this: cylinder > shellac 78 rpm record > long playing record > reel-to-reel tape > cassette tape > 8 track tape (really a side track) > compact disk > MP3 and MP4 electronic download, and I’ve probably missed something. Now a combine of four top recording companies (Universal, EMI, Sony, and Warner) have announced a new format they have tentatively called CMX designed to allow the downloading of entire albums including songs, lyrics, cover art, and liner notes as a package. The Times (London) notes that the companies approached Steve Jobs at Apple Computer with an eye to making these downloads available through iTunes, but that Jobs declined, preferring to continue with the sale of singles. According to the article, “The 2009 Entertainment Retailers Association handbook shows that only 10.3 million of the 139.8 million albums sold last year were downloads.” The CMX format is an effort to encourage consumers to return to albums. The question remains whether, without the cooperation and involvement of Apple to encourage digital downloads of entire albums with art and liner notes, the new effort has a chance of succeeding. Only the market will tell whether the recording industry can convince us to change formats once again and repurchase all our recordings in a new one. The battle against illegal downloading was recently upheld in the courts when a Boston University student named Joel Tenenbaum was fined $675,000 for downloading 30 songs.

Meanwhile, an article about concert tickets in the New Yorker (registration required) introduced me to a company called Live Nation. The article, by John Seabrook, called “The Price of a Ticket” examines the growth of Live Nation and its affiliation with Ticketmaster using a recent Bruce Springsteen concert in New Jersey as a case study. While the article examines the effect of Ticketmaster sales and aftermarket sales through their subsidiary TicketsNow on the price of tickets and their availability, it also suggests significant changes in the way the music business has and will operate. Live Nation, in the “About Us” section of its web site says, “Live Nation is the largest producer of live concerts in the world, annually producing over 16,000 concerts for 1,500 artists in 57 countries. The company sells over 45 million concert tickets a year and expects to drive over 60 million unique visitors to LiveNation.com in 2008.” The article in the New Yorker points out that the entire business model in music has changed as a result of digital downloads. Seabrook’s article quotes Irving Azoff, Chairman and CEO of Ticketmaster as saying, “The way the industry is monetized has totally changed. The order used to be: first, records; second, live; third, merchandise. Now it’s: first, live; second, third party sponsorship; third, merchandise, fourth, publishing; fifth, records. So that’s a big difference.”

While the numbers in the two foregoing paragraphs bear no resemblance to what we see happening in bluegrass music, perhaps the trends speak to the problems and opportunities we face. I hear musicians talk about sales being down and the discussions on-line support this supposition. Extensive discussions have taken place on Bluegrass-L (an IBMA list serv) about how artists and record companies receive reimbursement for air play on radio and for CD sales. It seems most artists are not happy with the current arrangements, but are frustrated about trying to figure out how to make a living making music. Early bluegrass bands traveled to small southern radio stations around the south where they performed on live programs, trying to sell a few records and get the word out that they would be performing live in the area. Flatt & Scruggs epic Carnegie Hall concert in 1962 brought bluegrass to a northeastern, urban audience. The delivery system changed when Carlton Haney promoted the first bluegrass festival in 1965 in Fincastle, VA. Still, bluegrass remained a relatively small niche genre within the wider umbrella of country music and, now, what has become known as Americana. The importance of radio in this development cannot be overestimated.

The largest promoter and packager of bluegrass music seems to be Adams & Anderson, who operate eight bluegrass festivals in the eastern states ranging from Florida to West Virginia. These festivals draw very good crowds for generally traditional bluegrass music laced with a strong component of southern gospel music. These events mostly present well known national acts over a three day period, foregoing the now traditional mixture of local, regional, and national acts with workshops that provide opportunities for musicians to share information and skills with interested fans. Adams & Anderson appear to be able to offer the high number of high profile bands they do by booking them for several shows a year and negotiating better prices from the bands because of his frequent use of them. Certain very high profile events are reputed to be able to strike hard bargains with performers because of the prestige of appearing at them. Nevertheless, the sophistication of bluegrass promotion has not advanced very far from the basic rural roots of the genre.

In order to make a living doing what they love, many bluegrass musicians have been forced to subject themselves to punishing travel schedules. In one weekend last winter, the top touring band in bluegrass appeared at Palatka, FL, Asheville, NC, and Boston, MA in the same weekend with a follow-up performance in a club in New York City on Tuesday. Many bands appear at two or three events, each several hundred miles apart, on a weekend during the summer season in order to be able to subsist. Because they need to travel such large distances, much of the intimacy between performers and audience that has characterized the bluegrass experience may be sacrificed. The vast majority of bluegrass performers cannot make a living full time in music. Those who do, in addition to performing, must teach, record as session musicians, write and publish their own music, and scratch to make a fairly meager living. Very few are able to support themselves in anything approaching the lavish lifestyle that successful country or rock musicians achieve. Such hardship is often characterized as part of what keeps bluegrass “authentic.”

In recent years, festival performances augmented by CD sales have provided the major support for bluegrass bands. With CD sales faltering and the festival audience apparently aging, bands have sought out newer venues in which to perform, and younger bands have moved towards sounds that might serve to attract a broader audience. Both these moves are derided by traditionalists as selling out, under the rubric of “going Nashville” or some such thing. Years ago, Neil V. Rosenberg pointed out in his classic Bluegrass Music: A History that bluegrass musicians are often more creatively expansive and experimental than their audiences are willing to accept. The moves of certain bands to appear in non-traditional venues like arts centers, college campuses, or mixed music events along with following their musical instincts to include the music in the air in today’s world (rock, folk, jazz, rap, and more) are met with strong resistance by the traditional audience, placing musicians in a difficult position.

During the current difficult economic times, a number of smaller festivals seem to have folded their tents or changed management. Promoters are either reducing the number of national bands they book or doubling down by hiring more and hoping to attract larger audiences. Although my evidence is only anecdotal, it seems that many festivals this summer have been doing quite well. Perhaps it is because a bluegrass festival, even with tickets having risen near or above the $100 mark, is still a great investment of the entertainment dollar. Bluegrass fans can travel a relatively short distance, hear great music, camp together and jam for much less than a more expensive vacation would cost. Several festivals we attended this summer had their best year ever, or nearly matched their best year, in attendance. Nevertheless, rain on Saturday can still turn an event from a triumph into a disaster by driving away the day crowd.

It’s impossible to say how new approaches to marketing and to the music itself will affect the future of bluegrass music. The recent experiment by Radiohead, the indie rock band, in which they released an album for free download on line, asking fans to pay what they thought the album was worth, is highly instructive. Eventually, the album sold over three million copies of digital downloads and CD sales. Maintaining control of their product and managing sales from a band’s web site may be part of the answer. Another approach is that used by Live Nation, in which all elements (performances, music sales, memorabilia, air play, and so-on) are packaged and managed by a single entity. Bands are becoming much more aggressive in learning to market themselves on line. Web sites, social network sites like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter are being used to draw fans (“friends”) to bands. Many festivals are improving their web presence by including more pictures, adding forums and chats to their web sites, and promoting themselves more widely than in their immediate geographic area. Bands are traveling more frequently to Europe, where there is a lively interest in traditional and progressive American bluegrass music. Nevertheless, it’s a confusing and challenging world in which bluegrass music and musicians are operating. One thing we can probably count on: the infectious, essentially positive lilt of the music will continue to appeal and new fans will find their way to this great American genre.